Friday, June 25, 2010

After the tornado that we just had here in Delaware County which left us without power and shut down businesses for over a day, I got a nice little happy moment today in the mail! State Representative William F. Adolph, Jr. sent me a little note in the mail over seeing my pic in the Springfield Press this week! Thanks, Bill!

Being the "King of All Promotion", I made it into the Springfield Press a third time in three weeks! This time, the pic is of myself and my graphics teacher, Robert Preston. I gave it to them the week after the award but they ran it now since they had a lot going on. Can't have enough promotion though so it's always great!

Saturday, June 19, 2010

My online store is up and running right now and about 100 pages of comic art, 58 sketches, and 36 comics or so ready for purchase! More stuff will be added when I get it scanned and ready! Anything purchased also get a certificate of authenticity with it as well so you know it's signed by me as well.

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

The Springfield Press printed my little article of sorts on my thoughts that I wrote a few days after my SHS - Arts Hall of Fame induction! I gave them a picture too but they just ran the article in this week's paper. I originally gave them a photo and the article as filler if they wanted it, so they were nice enough to print it. I was going to post it here as text but now I can post the actual printed newspaper instead. Click on the image naturally for the readable version.

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Since I posted my pics of Adam West and Burt Ward way back in the archives, I'd thought I'd post these as well. This past weekend I went to Wizard World Philly and met Julie Newmar on a rare east coast convention appearance! She was, and still is, the BEST Catwoman ever! I got three pics signed by her for my collection and they now reside next to my Adam West and Burt Ward ones! I now have Batman, Robin and Catwoman from the cast of the original 1966 Batman TV series. My goal of meeting all three is now complete! They had a nice set up for them as Adam and Julie were in two booths side-by-side and across from them was the Batmobile from the show. Luckily I got better shots of the Batmobile when I first met Adam and Burt at a show in New Jersey so I didn't bother taking any this weekend since the convention hall had lousy lighting.

Last year, I met Erin Grey who was Wilma Deering on the 1980's Buck Rogers in the 25th Century series and she was great! I didn't post the pics, but maybe I will add them to this post. Anyway, at this year's show, was Buck himself: Gil Gerard! Got to talk to him and he signed this pic for me. Other than that, I bought 4 comics and got outta Dodge. My main and only reason for going was to meet Julie and there's wasn't much that I was looking for in terms of comics or toys so I left early. It was crowded though and the dates for next year are set.

Saturday, June 12, 2010

I think I posted these on my other places like FaceBook but never here where they should be. So here we go... Last September I was invited by Warner Bros Consumer Products to participate in "The World of Hanna-Barbera" Gallery, which was a selection of artists who were asked to come up with new takes or new styles based on the HB characters. You had to do at least one of these three: Scooby-Doo, Tom & Jerry or Yogi Bear. These were the licenses they were pushing for this year so they wanted some new ideas. After you did one of these, you could then do anything else from the HB catalog.

You could do them in any style or medium. They didn't have to be on model and they wanted you to express yourself. You could make a Scooby-Doo out of bottle caps or Atom Ant out of matches if you wanted. The main idea was that these might inspire some new products or style guide art that could be used at some point. Being that I always kind of look for something that might sell or something that I would buy if I saw it, I went to the young kiddie route and came up with Baby Yogi and Baby Scooby! I think they came out great and WB seemed to love Baby Yogi so who knows... I thought the baby line would be great for these characters since Disney has had such success with their Baby versions of Mickey and Winnie the Pooh.*For process junkies, these two were penciled and then scanned and just colored under the pencils to keep the clean rough look. It's a nice look for concept art.

Now L'il Scooby was actually the first thing I did and took the most time as I was thinking it would be cool for maybe a line of beginner reader books or something. I know he does seem like a Scrappy-Doo clone, but Scrappy is crappy and this is more of an ideal way to go. Even WBCP won't let you draw Scrappy for a job since they kind of disavow him. I never liked Scrappy's design either and thought Scooby "jumped the shark" when they started introducing Scooby's family in general. I had a young kid version of Shaggy to go with this as well. I wanted something cute and something that would appeal to women or mothers and that was what I aimed for.

Monday, June 7, 2010

Joe Valentino from Valentino's Beautiful Home Center wanted to form a group for contractors who could network and find new work as a unit instead of as separate contractors. So the first thing I had to come up with was a logo design for the group.

He liked the ribbon design best, but here is another version that didn't get used. I thought I'd post it for people who like to see the process...

Here's some alternate ideas that I was thinking of while trying to keep a simpler corporate look.

Here's yet another logo with just text that locks together. We liked it and decided to use it for some things and you'll see it on the tri-folded brochure.

Here is the design for the group's letterhead... we kept it simple.

Then the art for a No. 10 envelope...

Here's the final design for a tri-folded brochure mailer... I like the design a lot and wanted to add some punch to it so that it would grab you. All the text was given by the client as to what they wanted to say so it was just a job or organizing it all and making it pop...

And here's the inside of the brochure. I like this design a lot as well and the way it grabs your eye! It came out great! It has the feel of a mission statment or a diploma with the border and logos working together.

Then finally, the client wanted a simple two-folded informational brochure that could be printed quick at a local printer as a teaser while the one above was printed on high gloss paper stock at the high-end printer in California that we use normally for everything else. I like the cover of it and how it grabs your eye. It should always attract the eye from a few feet away. If no one picks it up, it's a bad design in my eyes.

Here's a bunch of design work I did for Valentino's Beautiful Home Center! Starts with a business card design and then a letterhead.

Then a flyer for the grand opening...

Then a coupon/ad for them. I like this one as a design since if you cut the coupon and the picture off, the right side of the ad still works, which makes it a good layout.

Then they wanted a two-sided letterhead flyer to advertise what services they offer. I had to add to the illustration as it was just a house before and then wanted to have a commercial type of business building next to it. I think it came out great and the colors really pop! The illustration was all done in Adobe Illustrator as well. The rest was done in Photoshop.

And then I did a little two-sided mini-flyer that could be inserted into something like a brochure.

Sunday, June 6, 2010

Here's the first two pages to the June 2nd edition of the Springfield Press! The Arts Hall of Fame induction made the front page and was the main story! There's me in the pic! My blue tie sticks out! The article talks about the event and then does a mini, mini bio about each person inducted. The funny story that I told about my art teacher must have made an impact as the writer for the article mentioned it! Ha! The center of the paper had focused on the S.H.S. "Celebration of the Arts" show! I love free publicity! You can click on the images for the big readable copy!

Being that I was just inducted into the S.H.S. Arts Hall of Fame, I thought I should design my own 'Thank You' cards to send to the Arts Committee at the school. I was inducted under graphic arts and it would have been a bad move to buy something at the mall and send it since graphic design is what I do. I didn't have a lot of time to spend on it, but I got an idea and took this pic of my large stuffed Scooby and my certificate with some of my bookselves as a backdrop and I think it came out great! The angle of the shot and how the bookselves run along the back makes for an interesting design. Plus, it makes it so much more personalized than some store bought thing. I designed a whole card but this was the cover image. I used a Scooby font for some of the generic text inside and then hand-wrote some thanks in some dead space that I left open. Personalized stuff is always better!

Saturday, June 5, 2010

Back in February, I received a letter that I was to be inducted into Springfield High School's Arts Hall of Fame! I had graduated from the school in 1989 and now was being honored, among others, for the work that I've been doing since I graduated and for the giving back that I've done in the community over the years for the local schools and libraries. I thought that it was a nice honor after I read the letter, but I later found out how big a deal it really was since this was the 1st inaugural induction for the Arts Hall of Fame and that all of the past 75 years of the school's history were looked over to find the right mix of people for this inaugural induction. Out of the thousands of students, faculty and teachers, that had been there over the course of decades, only 21 total people were picked to be inducted. It was 14 students and 7 faculty members that ranged from the 1950s to around the mid-90s. There were only two that were picked for the graphics section and I was one of them! So it became a greater thrill as I knew more. The odds of being picked were the odds of getting on American Idol or winning the lottery.

On May 27th, the event was held in Springfield High School's LMC at 1pm. It was also the day after "Celebration of the Arts", which is held every year, so the school's hallways were packed with artwork and sculptures and the gym was packed with all the wood-working projects that students had done. These pics are from the event that I or family had taken. These first two pics are of my certificate that I was given after my name was announced and I went up to accept it and said a few words. It's about twice the size of my High School Diploma!

You also get a wall plaque as well that will hang in the Arts Hall of Fame display. After you said a few words after accepting the award, you got your picture taken and that would be inserted later, but I took a pic of it as it was.

And at the end of the awards, we were also presented with an engraved wall plaque that will hang outside the school somewhere that had all the inductee's names on it. This was really quite cool and my father seemed to like this the best. It was sitting on a table there but for this photo I had photoshopped a wall background behind it just to give an idea of what it might look like hanging up on display on a wall. Not sure where it will go though in the school. I'll go back and take a picture once it's mounted. They have several athletic ones hanging up next to the football field in the back but this is the first one for the arts. I can now go there and look at it and say, "Hey, that's me!"

Here is the cougar in the lobby that you see as you walk in the main front door.

Here is the cougar on display in the LMC where the awards were being held.

The cake that we had for dessert.

People arriving...

The certificates and wall plaques were neatly laid out...

The program that was handed out and it had all the inductee's bios in it.

The luncheon started at 12 noon.

At 1pm, the induction ceremony started with Stanley Johnson giving the greeting.

Bios was read and the award was given out by one of these three men: Mr. David Ash, Mr. Robert Preston and George Trout, Jr. They run the main arts section of the school and were on the commitee.

They went alphabetically so it took some time to get to the N's, but when they got to me, Mr. Preston had introduced me and presented me with my certificate! He was my graphic arts teacher so it was special to have it present it to me all these years later.

I went up and said a few words...and told some funny stories...

After the awards were over, my mother took a pic of me with the outside wall engraved plaque. She also had a hard time with my camera it seems since she cropped the picture wrong and my forehead got cut out. My father was taking better pics thankfully...

This was the group shot taken for the local papers of all 21 inductees!

My graphic arts teacher, Mr. Robert Preston, and myself after the awards.

A pic of my father and myself. My mother did better with this picture!

My high school art teacher, Mrs. Wilson, was inducted that day as well! Their was a funny story about her that I told and I'll write that in a later post.

And finally, I gave Mrs. Wilson the drawing of Scooby that I drew in one of my drawing videos that I posted here as a memento!

So all in all, it was a great day and an honor to be inducted into the S.H.S. Arts Hall of Fame!

About Me

Scott Neely is a professional illustrator and designer. For the last 17 years, he’s been a Scooby-Doo and Cartoon Network artist (working on such licensed properties as Dexter's Laboratory, Cow and Chicken, Johnny Bravo, Courage The Cowardly Dog, The Grim Adventures of Billy And Mandy, Powerpuff Girls, Ed, Edd n Eddy, Mike, Lu and Og, I.M. Weasel, and Sheep In The Big City). He has also worked on Pokemon, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, My Friends Tigger & Pooh, Classic Winnie The Pooh, Handy Manny, Phineas And Ferb, Power Rangers Jungle Fury, Power Rangers RPM, Strawberry Shortcake, Bratz, Shrek The Third, Shrek Forever Ever, MegaMind, Kung Fu Panda 2, Madagascar 3, Tom And Jerry, Precious Moments Girls Club and The Li'l Learners Club. Scott is also the visual creator and production designer of Hollywood Hal & Rhinestone Al with the Wannabees, which is a project he co-created with Scott Innes (a.k.a. The voice of Scooby-Doo, Shaggy and Scrappy-Doo) and musician Jim Hogg. He creates all the artwork for the Hal & Al “live-action” TV show and “live” stage shows as well as all Hal & Al advertising, media and product design. For more Hal & Al info, go to www.halandal.com.